But we had no time for thought, where action was urgent. With a sense of good work done, we passed out from a building on which the fire was already falling. The wind had risen, and as the buildings burned, not down but inwards—I mean that the outside of the walls was burnt off evenly to a core of somewhat different quality—burning flakes, almost as light as air, began to float on the wind, and sometimes would have driven against us, so that we avoided them with difficulty.
It was to withdraw from these that we moved away from the boiling tank, which my companion left with reluctance, so much did the sight of any water allure her, and but for the fact that it was in the condition of a thin soup from the many bodies which had been boiled within it, and indescribably repulsive, I doubt whether the heat would have been sufficient to deter her from the swim she needed. For myself, my thirst was such that only this new danger was sufficient to force me from it. But my cup was gone, with all my other possessions, excepting only what my pockets held. So I had no means of cooling the water, if I could have persuaded myself to drink it; and of boiling water I had just had a sufficient experience. For the Chief Justice, as he plunged, had contrived a kick which sent a swirl of water over the grating on which I stood as I pulled at the last bar, and though I jumped very quickly I had not escaped entirely, and to a stiff right arm I now added the infirmity of a left foot that limped and blistered.
I scarcely grudged him his revenge—he was a good fighter, and perhaps fate had used him hardly—but I felt an increased doubt of how we could hope to escape from the surrounding Killers that grouped beneath the crescent wall that enclosed us.
My companion was not troubled in that direction. “There is water near,” she told me jubilantly, and the next moment we were standing beside a large pool that sparkled clear and cool in the sunlight. A stream came in at one end from the cliff-side, and was drained away through a sluice at the other, so that it was fresh continually. Weeds grew in a clear depth, but did not reach the surface.
She dropped the javelin, and dived.
I had seen seals swim, and many graceful forms to which the water is native, but I had seen nothing like I saw then.
The legs did not move separately, but the appendages of which I have told held them together as one limb. The double tail, which was carried on land in such a way that it was barely visible, now came out, and with the tiny monkey hands at each extremity, may have done much, both in steering and propulsion. But the whole body seemed to move without effort. A curve, a twist and it shot the pool’s length and back, without evidence of any further directing motion.
I have always loved the water and (having drunk all I would) I was already taking off my damaged rags to join her, when I noticed that she was motionless above the weeds and looking intently at or through them. I marvelled how she could maintain her position, and paused a moment to watch her. The next, she had looked up, and must have recognised what I was doing, for her thought was urgent against it. I was not instantly willing to give up my intention, and while she still pressed me to desist, there came a movement under the weeds that caused the whole surface to tremble. The next second she had shot upward, and leapt out beside me.
“Water-snakes,” she answered. “They do not know us here, as do those of the ocean. Under the weeds, it is deep beyond seeing. I do not think I could have saved you, if you had come in. But I have taught those snakes that such as I am are not for a meal for their larder.”
I did not reply, for I had looked up, and seen that the living-wall was ablaze for all its length from cliff to cliff.
She saw it also, but more coolly. “Did you not foresee that it must be? I only thought that the Dwellers would be here sooner. It is a place of hiding that we need; but the water drew me.”
“I do not see where we can hide on this plateau.”
“I think there is only one place, and that I have seen it already.”
She led me toward the southern corner, where the cliff was met by the blazing wall. The Killers had left it at this point, for they were all thronging wildly to the gateway, and pouring out through the narrow neck between the burning of the open gates.
When we were about fifty yards from the wall, we turned to the cliff-side, and looking up saw a fault in the rock, it could scarcely be called a cave, but there was a shallow horizontal gap, about two feet high at one end, and about ten feet wide, narrowing to a point at the farther side, and about eight feet from the ground. I don’t think I could easily have climbed even that height in the condition in which I was, but she led the way, and wriggled easily, feet first, into the gap, and helped me till I was lying there beside her.
In the shadow, with the sun already descending toward the hills behind us, they would be good eyes indeed which would have detected us from any distance, while we had a wide view of the whole
